


Mind of the Queen

by Ranubis



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alien Culture, Gen, Mind Control, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 23:48:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2751692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranubis/pseuds/Ranubis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thoughts of the Rachni Queen, as she waits...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mind of the Queen

I listen to the notes of the workers, their mild melodies blending together as they dig through the ground, making new tunnels and rooms to grow my nest. Drones cry out as they build and strengthen the walls of my domain, echoes of their movements resounding through the air in muted tones.

It is quiet. All my children must control themselves, lest we be discovered before we are ready to help. Even my own music is soft, subtle as I direct my young in our tasks. Oh, how I long to let loose my symphony, to fill the empty space with the music of the Rachni, to bring color to the darkness! But I cannot. Not yet.

For now, I compose in silence, planning the great Crescendo, when the Rachni will rise and join our song with the aliens, join our musics together and burn away the enemy that threatens all. After, I do not know. My kind did so much harm during the Corruption, when the Mothers' song was turned by the Reapers, who twisted the Rachni from artists to tools of their destruction. The galaxy has changed since then, but the scars of the time still burn in the memories of many. Will they forgive our race? I do not know.

The aliens are so different from us, so different. Life without the music of the mind? It seems impossible. How can one live alone and separate, walking in silence and solitude? And each alien is truly alive, with a mind of their own. Worlds full of queens, with no ability to join their songs, each composing alone. Is it any wonder they have so much discord when their music is made in isolation?

Even I am not as lost as them, not anymore. Slowly but surely, my daughters find their own quiet planets and begin their own nests. I sing to them, teaching them of our ways, our history – and our future. We weave our songs together, binding our nests in a –

My wandering minds stops, alerted to a burst of red panic from one of my daughters. No, it cannot be. The Rachni have been discovered? No, no! It is too soon, we are not ready! Who has found us? I sing out, my grey chord of warning spreading through space, alerting my daughters to the danger. In each nest, singing is silenced, movement ceased, as we look to the source of the discord.

I listen, my daughter continuing to cry out, coloring the vast canvas of space in her fright. I sense the red of fear, the orange of pain, the purple of despair… yellow.

No. No, no, no. Not now. Not again.

The sour yellow note spreads from my stricken daughter's nest, overwhelming her nearby sisters. It spreads, and I try to conduct my remaining daughters in defense, but they panic, crying out as they are corrupted, one by one. Now my daughters turn against me. Now not just a yellow note, but a chord, a part, a  _symphony_  is thrown against me. I sing with all my might, but I am no match. I see my drones, my poor children, fall to the ground, writhing in pain. I see them rise and flee to the surface, heedless of my calls.

And now it is upon me. Now my mind is being crushed, overruled. Now I use the last of my will to send a message to the courier on Illium, before I am lost to the Reapers, lost to my doom.

_Get Shepard. The Rachni have fallen._


End file.
